


This Is How She Remembers

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-22
Updated: 2006-05-22
Packaged: 2019-01-19 15:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: She was the only one to survive in the end. She had fallen, like everyone else, when the end had come, but she had lived. When they asked her how come she had lived, she always answered the same. "Because someone has to remember."





	This Is How She Remembers

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**This Is How She Remembers  
By** unperfectwolf  
 **Archive:** let me know first, yes?  
 **Rated:** pg  
 **Fandom, Pairing:** Harry Potter Un., Gen: Luna Lovegood  
 **Summary:** _She was the only one to survive in the end. She had fallen, like everyone else, when the end had come, but she had lived. When they asked her how come she had lived, she always answered the same. "Because someone has to remember."_  
 **Disclaimer:** not mine, never was mine, never will be mine. all is jk rowling's.  
 **Word Count:** 942  
 **Authors Notes:** I really liked this piece, for some reason. It's done in an odd way, but somehow it works better than I'd thought.

**THIS IS HOW SHE REMEMBERS**

This is how she remembers.

It started with a single scream. She knew the scream, she did, but she doesn't know the name.

She might have, once.

It began with a scream and it ended with screams.

Screams were all that was in between. Everyone was screaming. On both sides. Everywhere.

It was just screams.

This is how she remembers.

She lives alone in a room. No one else is there with her. She never lived alone before, but she hasn't lived with anyone since.

Someone lives in the other room, always there to take care of her.

They won't ever abandon the only survivor, but they won't ever let her go, either.

She doesn't know who lives in the other room, or who has in the past.

But she knows who she's lived with, in the same room. She knows them all.

This is how she remembers.

She was the only one to survive in the end. She had fallen, like everyone else, when the end had come, but she had lived.

When they asked her how come she had lived, she always answered the same.

"Because someone has to remember."

No matter how they change the question, no matter how many times they ask it, her answer is always the same.

This is how she remembers.

No one was moved from where they fell. They couldn't be, in the end. No one knew why, for sure, but it didn't matter.

Each person, all of them, had a headstone. It didn't matter which side they were on.

She had one too, where she had fallen. And when she finally passed, she would go there.

There were only two headstones with more than a name and dates on them.

Her's, and Harry Potter's.

His, "The Boy Who Lived."

Hers, "The Girl Who Survived."

This is how she remembers.

She remembers green. She can see green flashes, and sometimes they scare her.

Not always, but sometimes.

She sees the green and sometimes it makes her scream.

Sometimes it makes her laugh.

It always makes her cry.

This is how she remembers.

They use to ask her what had happened.

She always told them.

"Magic," she would say.

They would never understand.

"Magic," she would say, "happened."

They would ask her more and more questions, but that was what had happened.

This is how she remembers.

Her blonde hair never grew. It stayed the same length it had been when she was found.

She never tanned, and never got paler.

No one knew why, and when they asked, she would just look at them confused.

"I just cut my hair three weeks ago!" she would tell them.

They finally gave up asking, and just accepted it.

This is how she remembers.

The first time she saw a mirror, she screamed and screamed until her voice was hoarse.

Every mirror in the hospital was shattered, and every window cracked.

They never let her see a mirror again.

This is how she remembers.

She always reacted to thunderstorms. Sometimes she began to talk fast and smoothly, like a young girl.

She would talk and talk and talk, telling people things that didn't matter, about made up creatures and trips to places no one could remember.

This is how she remembers.

She would remind these people about something, about a celebration.

When they asked her what it was, she told them it was New Years Eve.

She told them, that it was a celebration of life time.

"It was the New Millennium," she would tell them. "And we had lots and lots of Fireworks."

It took them a long time to realize she was remembering the last time anyone ever saw Weasley Wizarding Wheezes. 

This is how she remembers.

Other times she would begin to scream when the thunderstorm began. She would scream out curses and hexes and call for people that had died long ago.

She could have destroyed anything with her fear, if she had had her wand.

But it was still where she had fallen. No one had been able to move it, and she refused a new one.

No one had asked her in years, if she wanted one.

She never tried to do magic, except then.

This is how she remembers.

After a while, she would calm down and begin talking in a low voice about plans that no one knew, to people that weren't there.

She would talk for hours, pointing out mistakes in plans that had never materialized.

Desperation could be heard in her voice, and a weariness no one else knew.

It sounded like she had been fighting a war for years.

This is how she remembers.

When they asked her who she was talking to, she always looked surprised.

"Them," she would tell them.

It took them years to understand she was talking to the dead she had once known.

This is how she remembers.

She was always cold. Often, she changed her clothes three or four times a day.

When asked, she told them she felt like she was wet.

This is how she remembers.

Sometimes she would ask if the rain was going to ever stop, and if they could move out of the mud soon.

It wasn't always raining and she lived in a room with a wooden floor.

This is how she remembers.

She could tell anyone anything they wanted to know about before.

She could tell them, all the way up until she couldn't.

She never remembered after.

She didn't remember waking up.

She didn't remember the hospital.

She could remember war, though.

And she could remember death.

This is how she remembers.


End file.
